Sunday, March 18, 2012

The Thinnings

I know a woman who refuses to thin her fruit trees. She says it is
because she's got a strong maternal instinct. Her trees bear and bear
and their heavy, burdened limbs break in the windstorms. Ripe fruit litters
the ground, bringing clouds of vinegar flies. But as generous as she is
with her trees, she is with her friends and neighbors. All are welcome
to walk away with bags of limes and apples, feijoas and jujubes.

I'm less generous with both my trees and my fruit.

Eva's
Pride is my pride; I want her fruit to be plump and beautiful, and her
well-shapen limbs to last for many years. This year, it seems as if
every flower has left a velvety teardrop future-peach. It is too much.
Mid Pride, Eva's less lovely sister, has done the same, a few weeks
behind Eva, but she also suffers from many "double-fruits" which often
split and rot near ripening. This commonly occurs after late summer
drought—I need to monitor Mid Pride's drip line this year to make sure
she's getting the water she needs. Neither of my nectarines this year
are suffering from overbearing, and the mysterious White Tiger is
just thinking about beginning to bloom, far behind its prunus cousins.

A small branch before thinning. The ten inch branch has ten fruit on it, far too much for it to bear.

Here is Eva's Pride after thinning some of it. The small branch in the picture above now has three fruit, probably still one too many.

So much fruit that won't be.

Misshapen and doubled Mid Pride peachlings.

Today, I
thinned my peaches. Trees benefit from early thinning, as the earlier competition is removed, the earlier the tree can focus on what will be its final crop. Commercial orchards thin trees to bear peaches every
eight inches or so. I couldn't quite make myself be so strict. Instead,
I removed all the smallish, misshapen, and most of the doubled fruit. I
tried to leave, at the very least, four inches between each fruit.
Eva's branches, already heavy with the young fruit, lifted after the
thinning.

Looking at what I removed from the trees
almost made me sad; it looked like pies and jams and dribbles of juice
running down my chin that I wouldn't have. But looking back at the trees
and seeing how much still clung to their branches was reassurance
enough.